THE DISUNION POLICY OP THE ADMINISTRATION. 



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S JP E IE C H 



HON. ANSON HERRICK. 



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IN TIIE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 2^iARCH 26, 18&4. 



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WASHINGTON, D. C. : 

PRINTED AT CONSTITUTIONAL UNION OFFICE. 
18Ci. 



SPEECH 



The House being in Committee of Uie Whole on 
the state of the Union — 
Mr. HERRICK said : 

Mr. Chairman, in the remarks I design to 
make upon the President's message, I_do not 
propose to dwell upon the manifold crimes of 
the present Administration against the people 
of this country. I do not intend to expatiate 
mien its audacious usurpations of undelega- 
ted power, nor to consider its subversion of 
the rights guarantied to these States and it:, 
unwarrantable interference with the freedom 
of the press, the freedom of speech, and the 
personal liberty of the citizen. Heinous as 
these offenses are, I charge upon the Admin- 
istration a crime of far greater magnitude, 
and one fruitful of more numerous and more 
grievous evils than all of these together.— 
The greatest crime that can be committed by 
men to whom the dearest interests of a nation 
have been confided, is to make the honor, 
prosperity, and peace of the country a secon- 
dary consideration in their administration of 
hs affairs to the temporary success of a party, 
to the political preferment and pecuniary ag- 
grandizement of the leaders of that_ party. 
Compared with this crime robbery is but a 
venial sin, and murder a trivial misdemean- 
or- for in itself, a financial and military crisis 
sucb as now exists in this country necessarily 
includes and comprehends both. The men 
DOW having control of the Government I do 
not hesitate, Mr. Chairman, to declare guilty 
of this high crime. They have no desire nor 
intention to bring this war to a close; nor are 
they endeavoring to accomplish such a result. 
They ars making no calculations in that di- 
rection, but are shaping everything for a long 
war Had they so desired, peace, with the 
Union restored and the Constitution preserv- 
ed might have been secured long ago, and an 
immense waste of blood and treasure saved. 
Every gallant soldier whose life has been of- 
fered up with humble patriotism, a willing 
8acrifi:e upon the altar of his country, since 
the war could thus have been ended, has been 
literally murdered by the Administration; 
while every dollar that has been expended 
since that time to^^carry on the war, has been 
in reality stolen by it from the people. 

It is the first and most imperative duty of 
the Administration to bring this war to an 
end at the earliest possible moment consistent 
with the objects for which only it can be right- 
fully waged; and it is because it does not 
Beek to do so, but on the contrary contmues 



to introduce new issues, to multiply diftcul- 
ties and to barricade all the avenues to an 
honorable peace under the Constitution, that 
it is morally guilty of treason to the people. 
In reviewing the operations of the Admin- 
istration since the removal of Gen. McClellan 
from the command of the Army of the Poto- 
mac many events and circumstances are 
found to justify the assumption that the war 
has been purposely prolonged to accomplish 
other objects than the suppression of the re- 
bellion, the restoration of the Union, and the 
enforcement of the laws. Yes, Mr. Chair- 
man, and for even still other purposes than 
the enfranchisement of the negro race, which 
has now become the principal plank m the 
war platform of the President and his sup- 
porters. Party supremacy and the perpetua- 
tion of partisan power are matters of para- 
mount importance to the politicians who now 
rule the destinies of this nation, while mili- 
tary operations are made altogether subser- 
vient to party ends regardless of any result 
afTecting the great issues of the conflict which 
involves the life of the nation. 

The war has been, and still is, the strength 
of the political organization now in possession 
of the Government ; and the ruling minds of 
that organization fully comprehend the im- 
portance to their party of its continuance. 
Without the war, they know that they would 
be as powerless as a party as Samson when 
shorn of his locks. It may be that in the 
conduct of the war for the last three years 
the Administration has done its best to over- 
throw the rebellion, and that we owe our sad 
failure to achieve any great results, after an 
expenditure of lives and treasure unparalleled 
in the history of modern wars, entirely to its 
imbecility ; but to me, when I consider the 
military operations which have originated in 
Washington, and the efforts made by our 
iriends on the other side of this House to ex- 
asperate the rebels, obliterate the Union sen- 
timent in the South, and multiply the issues 
Bvolved, and when I contemplate the barren 
iruits of the sanguinary conflict thus far, it 
does not seem unfair to assume that the rul- 
ine minds of the dominant party have deter- 
mined at all hazards to keep the war alive as a 
"political necessity," and as the best means 
,.f insuring them a continuance of political 
ower The immense volume of patronage in 
ilontraots, civil offices, and military commis- 
.ions which would be lost to them if the war 
should be concluded by a restoration of the 
anion, is eateemedlby them of far greater 



value as political capital than any popular I claimed that none of the rebpl States shall be 



ezlat they might obtain by a speedy extin 
p,uishment of the rebellion, even though 
emancipation should be secured at the same 
time. As a means of achieving political suc- 
cess in the approaching presidential election 
the Republican politicians hare a motive suf- 
ficient to impel the leaders of that party to 
continue this exhausting and bleody war, un- 
til they shall have secured at least another 
tour years' lease of the governmental machin- 
eiy of the countrj, with power to further 
opetate the much-worn printing presses of 
Treasury Department. 

I think, Mr. Chairman, I do that party no 
injustice in ascribing to it these unworthy 
motives for continuing the war. All their 
ujovements justify the presumption. Sir, 
the politicians who now despotically rule the 
( ountry with a rod of iron, unscrupulous in 
their schemes to plunder the people, North 
and South, having found in the war and their 
■war-cry of "freedom to the slave," a cement 
which binds to iheir car the negro fanatics of 
the land, as well as the innumerable horde of 
public plunderers, contractors, speculators, 
placemen, spoilsmen, and "soldiers of for- 
tune" generally, which the violent distur- 
■bance of the social and political elements of 
the country has drawn to the surface of the 
troubled waters, have evidently determined 
that the war shall be resolved into a presiden- 
tial campaign. All the movements of our 
armies are naw dictated by partisan motives. 
The subjugation of the free people of the 
loyal States to the abolition party yoke, and 
the subversion of the "Constitution as it is," 
]have become matters of vastly more impor- 
tance to the Administration than the crushing 
of the rebellion and the restoration of peace 
and fraternal relations between the two sec- 
tions of our country now at war. While 
they evidently regard the continuance of this 
unnatural oonflict as their only hope for pro- 
longed power, they will never consent to re- 
linquish the war and with it their political 
supremacy if they can avoid it on any plaus- 
ible pretext. We can hardly expect to find 
in them patriotism of so exalted a character. 
It would not at all tally with the past history 
of the party they represeut. 

Mr. Chairman, it is because the sagacious 
and unscrupulous politicians of the Republi- 
«an party fully realize that the war and its 
profits, as political capital, and as a pecuniary 
resource for conducting partisan operations, 
are of more value to tkem than a restored Union 
whose Government they would never be able 
to control, that the distinguished gentleman 
from Pennsylvania is "about sick" of hear- 
ing of " the Constitution as it is and the Union 
as it was." "This Union," remarked the 
dietinguished gentleman who is the recogniz- 
ed leader of the other side of the Uouse, 
"neuer shall be restored under the Constitution, 
with slavery protected." So, also, the gen- 
tleman from Michigan, [Mr. Beaman,] and 
others on that side of the Ilou^e, hare pro- 



recognized as States of the Union until they 
amend their constitutions and abolish slave- 
ry. Why not, Mr. Chairman ? What is there 
so objectionable in the Union and the Consti- 
tution which our fathers established that 
should render a saHgninary and devastating 
war preferable to their further coijtinuance ? 
Slavery was no impediment to the formation 
of the Union ; why should it be to its contin- 
uance ? What is there to make the gentle- 
man 'sick" of hearing the Democracy talk 
of restoring the glorious Union under which 
we have have lived and thrived, exulting in 
the greatness of our country as one of the 
most powerful nations of the earth? The 
people who have been taught to believe that 
our Government under the Constitution, 
which the abolition party are disposed to 
repudiate, is the best that was ever vouch- 
safed to man, may well wonder why the gen- 
tleman and his associates pi onounce so vehe- 
mently against its restoration as it was before 
this accursed rebellion broke out. The great 
secret of this antipathy to " the Union as it 
was" will be readily found in the fact that 
Such a restoration would put an end to their 
political power 1 

From the foundation of this Government, 
slavery has hmu protected by the Constitution, 
as a local institution, in all such States as 
were pleased to tolerate it ; and yet our conn- 
try prospered and our people were continual- 
ly blessed as no other people under heaven 
ever were, until the fanatical philanthropists 
of the North commenced the abolition agita- 
tion which culminated in this rebellion, and 
sought to encroach upon the constitutional 
rights of their fellow-citizens of the slave 
States who were perfectly content with what 
the Constitution gave them. By the Consti- 
tution they were inhibited from any interfer- 
ence with this matter, and had no more right 
to meddle with the institution of slavery in 
Virginia than with the system of labor in 
Cuba. Slavery in the southern States was as 
much removed from their interference by the 
Constitution as slavery in Brazil ; and neither 
the President nor Congress had a right to in- 
terfere with it in any respect, otherwise than 
to provide laws for the return of fugitives to 
their masters. It is not my design, Mr. 
Chairman, on this occasion to discuss the al- 
mighty negro or to undertake to trace the 
origin of the rebellion to its true source, with 
the fanatical abolitionists of the North, who 
worship the memory of old John Brown of 
Ossawatomie, as that of a martyr 1 

It is sufTuient to know that a gigantic war 
is upon us, no matter for the present how it 
camo about. The problem to solve is, how 
shall it be brought to an honorable close? 
How shall the further effusion of fraternal 
blood be stopped r How shall the devasta- 
tion of our country be stayed, and the mons- 
trous and needless expenditure of borrowed 
money be checked ? The honor of the Fed- 
eral Government must be maintained ; its 



integrity must be vin^iicated, and its suprem- 
acy re-e?tablished over every foot of soil 
within our national borders, while tte Cou 
stitution framed by the fathers of the Republic, 
which has fallen into such disrepute on the 
other side of this House, must be upheld in 
every point that originally formed the bond 
of our Union. We must have peace and the 
Union. This corsummaiion so "devoutly 
to be wished," Mr. Chairman, can never be 
achieved by the party now in power. That 
is plainly apparent. It is not the vocation 
of those who have done so much to destroy 
the Union to restore it ; and the people must 
open their eyes to that pregnant fact. The 
hopes of the country are now centering upon 
the efforts which the patriotic Democracy o) 
the North will make in the ensuing presi- 
dential campaign to unseat and consign to 
hopeless political perdition the crafty dema 
gogues, the short- sighted fanatics, and the 
remorseless plunderers now in power, who 
are wasting th>i precious lives of the people 
and mortgaging the labor of this and many 
succeeding generations without accomplish- 
ing any adequate results. They are con 
Stantly multiplying the objects of the war. 
with an evident design to its procrastination, 
while they totally ignore the legitimate and 
constitutional programme declaied by Con 
gress and the President in 1861, and boldly 
avow that they will not have "the Union as 
it was." or any other Union, until sfavery is 
abolished by force of arms. 

Mr. Chairman, the great Democratic party, 
whose policy for the most part has guided 
this^uation in its past glorious career, and 
achieved for it all the prosperity and power 
which^attached to it when this unholy rebel- 
lion broke out, will come united to our coun 
try's rescue in November next, and may God 
grant it success in the salvation of the Union. 
That great party, whose unlucky defeat in 
1860 has prove! so disastrous to the country, 
aims now to bring this war to a close by 
means o1 an honorable peace and a perfect 
reconciliation at the earliest possible moment 
that the misguided men now in rebellion can 
be induced, by coercion or otherwise, to lay 
down their arms and return to their allegiance. 
When they shall be found ready to desist 
from their opposition to the Government, and 
shall unresistingly submit to its laws, the 
party to which I belong would kill the fatt«-d 
calf, and proclaim a general amnesty withoui 
any such conditions as the President ha^ 
imposed, welcoming back to the fold of thf 
Union all the States disposed to return, with 
a reservation, perhaps, that the principal 
leaders of the secession movement should 
jpay the penalty of treason. We would not 
(Impair in the least degree the rights guar 
antied to the States. We would have n(' 
{"reconstruction" of the State governments 
(save such as the people might inaugurate foi 
[themselves. We would teach them by oui 
jconduct toward them to acknowledge tha- 
there was no justification for their rebellitD, 



and would afford them no pretext for a de- 
fense of their treason, by denyiBg them any 
right or privilege they ever possessed. We 
would let their negroes alone, and respect all 
their rights to property, to free suffrage and 
equal representation in the Government. 
When they will accept such terms we would 
forget the animosities of this war and frater- 
nize with them as fellow-eitizens. The De- 
mocracy, Mr. Chairman, are seeking in the 
restoration of the Union to preserve our 
territorial integrity, while standing forth, as 
they always have, champions of the rights 
and dignity of the State governments. They 
would punish the individual traitors who set 
this wicked secession rebellion in operation, 
while they would not impair the constitu- 
tional prerogative of each and every State to 
regulate its own system of labor and control 
its own social institutions. 

The Democracy are for closing this war the 
moment it can be done with honor, irrespec- 
tive of the fate of the negro, and regardless of 
its effect upon the presidential election or 
partisan politics ; and herein we differ frona 
our abolition friends on the other side of the 
House, whose interests and political hopes are 
all found in a procrastination of the war. 

The tardy progress of military operations— 
the failure in three years to produce any prac- 
tical results bearing upon tho legitimate issues 
involved — the frequent diversion of our 
armies to make startling movements for po- 
litical effrict, and to perform such contemp- 
tible party manoeuvres as that which the 
President's late private secretary recently un- 
dertook in Florida at a cost of a thousand or 
two of lives and two or three millions of 
money — these things, as well as the absurd, 
unconstitutional, and impracticable fulmina- 
tions of the President touching the emancipa- 
tion of the negro and the reconstruction of 
States upon the principle that one-tenth of 
the people may govern the whole — I say, Mr. 
Chairman, these things, coupled with the ne- 
!^ro legislation of this Congress, have convinc- 
ed me that the designing politicians who now 
wield the power of the Federal Government 
would not have peace even if accompanied by 
the complete submission of the South, until 
ihey shall have tested their ability to capture 
the Federal Government for another term of 
four years. They want power and not peace. 
It is the war and its patronage that has con- 
solidated and invigorated the pan isms of the 
Administration and given them the prestige 
of power they now wield as a political organi- 
zation ; and it is only the belief of the con- 
tractors, speculators, office holders, and pub- 
lic plunderers, who in a great measure oon- 
-fitute that party, that the war will be indefi- 
nitely continued under Republican rule, that 
gives them the ghost of a chance to elect their 
candidate for the Presidency in the coming 
election. 

When this Republican party first camo into 
power, it a was a minority party in the coun- 
try and in Congress. The rebellion it was 



vnTn/j "- 



^hlcti gave them a majority in Congres^ 
rhroueh the unwarrantable desertion of their 

Sf, the southern Ke - -^^^^^ 
fh^XontSo^i^i^ 

part f^om them forever, no matter what may 
Te the'fate of the blacks As they were b 
fact indebted to the rebellion ^^^.^^'^^''^^^l 
tion of their predominance, so they must de 
lend upon the war, and its patronage and 
Sunder! for a perpetuation ot their gove- 
iiental control. Eully realizing that the r 
polScal ascendency must pass away, never o 
?eturn, so soon as the war is ended it would 
be idle to suppose that they woald be willing 
to sink their whole political capital by con 
sentTng to any peace at this stage of the game 
ATthe eloquent gentlemen from Indiana [Mr. 
VooFHEESl well observes, they refuse to ne 
Joulfe be^cl^se they know that negot^a ion 
.would bring peace upon terms that would 
satisfy a majority of the people of both sec 
tions and restore the Union ; but slavery 
would not be abolished, -^ their fe^ ^t^. 
creat central Power to supersede State gov 
ernments would have to be ^^-f^^^^'^^^f^ 
with it their political supremacy. Well do 
7iey know that when their political sun goes 
down at the close of this war, the niem^ o^ 
their infamous rule for four years will be fol- 
lowed by the execrations of a plundered and 
ou^rac^ed people, while the anathemas of a 
ho t of widows, orphans, invalids and crip- 
S?es will haunt them in the obscurity to 
which they will be consigned. It requires no 
Tho Uo t?ll us that the Republican party mil 
be overwhelmed and pass into oblivion when 
•t%h:il be deprived of the patronage ^and 
Tjlunder of this war, even should the co 
hesive power" of this plunder prove equal to 
.?heTre'e7vationof that party from the mtes- 
ine war now in progress among ^ts leaders 

The maintenance of union in their party 
ranks I fancy is now a mattpr of more con- 
Tern to man'y gentlemen on ti^e other side o 
this House than the crushing out of the great 
secession rebellion m the feouth. They are 
'r^ rrsolicitous to conciliate the antagonism 
of the partisans of the great abolition and fi- 
nancial oligarchy now ruling the country 
than they are to harmonize the conflict of 
arms whih has been draining the life-blood 
of the nation for the last three years ; fully 
appreciating the fact as they do that so soon 
S the sluice ways of corruption and robbery 
which the war has opened shall be closed by 
an honorable and conciliatory peace, and the 
people, having put away the insane worsh p 
li the negro, are once more clothed m the r 
right mind, their occupation as rulers of the 
land will be gone ! ,i„„ti,^ 

While the singular fanaticism which rules the 
present hour pervades the public mmd, bear- 
ing down all reason and argument and ridiuf^ 
rough shod over the Constitution, the laws, and 
[he rights of white men, our friends over the 



way are having full swing, and we ^^eyo^er- 
S to disturb their saturnalia of puohc plun- 
der in the midst of which the country is fa t 
approaching the abyss of ruin. The peopie, 
who are eager to sustain the Government in 
putting doln the reb-llion, have been taught 
?y the misrepresentations of a subsidized press 
and the falsehoods of an army of ahohtion leo- 
turers and missionaries who have penetrated 
every hamlet in the country to rega^^ the 
Democratic party as the enemies of the Gov- 
frnment and^ympathizers with the secession 
aTorsof the South. Joo many have con- 
Lindeithe Administration with " the boy- 
ernment,' ' and the efforts of the abolitionists 
?o Zna<^ate the idea that the opponents of 
he'^Presfdent and his policy of conducting 
the war are hostile to the Government and 
the r:'establishment of the U-on ha>-e 

r trot?SB=:^^itve^ver'frd 

^ the North are the Republican abolitiomstg 
who ^rodaim, like the gentleman from Penn 
syivania, that they will have no Union under 
^^^sSThfS:rc:'a:^'art; oppose the prin- 
ciples and policy of the men now in power 
betuse the'y see\hat those PJ^-J - ^^^^^ ! 
policy, if further pursued will i^^" ^^J.^J 
«trov the country by rendering it impossiDie 
raccompUsh a restoration of the Union upon 
ly%Zt that Will .recondle Jhe people o^ 
the two sections again to dwell together m 
fraternal bonds as one people- 

Mv belief is that the salvation of this coun 
try now depends more upon the ballot-box 
next November, than upon the armies we 
Save in the field. The decisive battle for the 
DnTon is to be fought at the election polls m 
which a Democratic victory wi U be s^vat on 

s;^^;:i^nS::^d;;:Xwnuu^« 

w th Se meaL'to wLk their party --hm- 
Prv effectivelv, and we may expect the whole 
enlrgv and strategy of the Administration o 
be tuimed from our rebel enemies in the .-outh 
to Iv "rt a triumph of the Democracy of the 
Nnrlh in November. . . 

^ S imulated with the hope of a continuation 
of the rich pickings which the leading Repub- 
Ucan politicians and their friends have enjoy- 
ir^n the way of contracts, railroad transpor- 
ati r'tocll^hbing, and fat offices, gro.^g 
i J ti,a war with the prospect ot a suu 

nation of the white race in the slave blates, 
the Spo icy is to nurse the war and procrasti- 
nate al eflective military operations that 
Sght lead to its speedy termination upon the 
ba^is of the Crittenden resolution. 

We all know that the rebellion can onlybej 
crushed and the war ended by the destrucaon, 
of the armed power of the contederates. 
The r great armies must be overthrown, dis- 
p r df or captured, before we can expect the 



rebels to yield ; and yet in all the flourish of 
trumpets we fail to discover indications of 
any such concentration of the Federal forces 
as will he likely to accomplish that end. The 
recent disastrous adventure of Colonel John 
Hey in Florida, where the lives »f nearly two 
thousand of our soldiers and a million or two 
ef dollars were sacrificed in an attempt to 
capture three electoral votes for the Presi- 
dency ; the late foolish, unproductive, and 
calamitous raid of Kilpatrick, the abortive 
expedition of General bherman, the practical 
withdrawal of our forces from before Charles- 
tOH, and the general " scatteration" of our 
armies, while bogus State governments are 
being tinkered up in Louisiana, Arkansas, 
and other rebel States, indicate that profitless 
movements to amuse the public mind rather 
than vigorous and concentrated efforts to 
destroy the large armies of the rebels are 
Btill to characterize the military operations of 
the Administration, unless, perchance. Gen- 
eral Grant, in the exercise of his newly- ac- 
quired power as lieutenant general, shall 
change the programme upon which the spring 
campaign has been opened by the Adminis- 
tration. The grand results of this campaign 
so far, are thus succinctly specified in the 
New York Times, a leading Lincoln organ : 

"Four expeditions, and what looks like four 
FAILURES. An expedition from Jacksonville 
marches into Florida, and is driven back with loss. 
General Sherman marches from Vicksburg, and 
having gone one hundred and twenty miles in his 
grand strategy, marches back again ! General 
Smith starts a cavalry expedition (from Mem- 
phis!) to join Sherman, and they march back 
again. The cavalry under Kilpatrick start off to 
Richmond, and after destroying some mills, and 
canal locks, find themselves comfortably at Fort 
Monroe." 

Suffering the loss of three hundred men, 
several valuable officers, and raining two 
thousand horses. 

"Thomas makes a tremendous movement on 
Dalton, captures Tunnel Hill and marches back 
again ! Now, we have the telegraphic reporters 
(those most enlightened of all living generals) 
announcing that these are onlj' a sarins oi' raids ! 
Well, what was their object ? What was to be got? 
They march back af/ain. Who commands the 
American Army? Why, obviously, General Scat- 
teration ; and these are his performances. He 
marched out five armies in five different directions 
— not one of them strong enough to accomplish any 
definite object." 

This is a Republican brief of the opening of 
the spring campaign. There is some hope 
that when General Grant shall get fairly in 
the harness of his new position as comman- 
der of all our armies, this sort of trifling, as 
well as the balls, dress parades, and other 
amusements in camp, will be done away with, 
and that effective movements upon the ene- 
my's works and forces will be inaugurated 
under his direction, which will be productive 
of more satisfactory results. But even tken 
we have good reason to apprehend that the 



summer campaign will be carried on more 
for the capture of electoral votes than for the 
destruction of rebel armies and strongholds. 
Political supremacy, and not the restoration 
of the Union or the emancipation of the ne- 
groes, is the present grand aim of those who 
possess the power to direct General Grant as 
well as to control the Government ; and while 
he may, by his genius and activity, be able to 
win splendid victories, and may even capture 
Richmond, and drive the rebels out of Vir- 
ginia, the politicians who have so much at 
stake on a continuance of the war will take 
good care that no peace shall follow until they 
secure a new lease of power. When they shall 
have triumphed — God forbid such a calamity 
— in the election, the motives (ft plunder and 
patronage connected with the war will still 
remain, and, judging from the past, we may 
safely calculate that the overthrow of Jeff. 
Davis and his humbug confederacy will still 
be a secondary consideration, and that the 
war will continue so long as the bright vis- 
ions oi( financial responsibility which dazzle 
the eyes of my colleague [Mr. Stebbins] can 
'induce investments in Treasury securities. 

We have high Republican authority in the 
famous " Pomeroy circular" to justify our 
belief that should Jklr. Lincoln be re-elected 
to the Presidency not only will " the dignity 
and honor of the country sufi"er," but that in 
such an event ^^ the war may continue to lan- 
guish during his whole administration, till the 
public debt shall become a burden too great to be 
borne." 

This sentiment, so boldly proclaimed from 
one wing of the Republican party, is no doubt 
the general conviction of the country ; and if 
I read correctly " the signs of the times" a 
majority of the people will unite in the same 
declaration at the ballot-boxes in November 
next, and retire Mr. Lincoln to private life. 

Would the leaders on the other side of the 
House, Mr. Chairman, gauge all our legisla- 
tion for three years more of war, if they had 
any design to close it within the present year ? 
The country should know and understand 
that nobody here connected with the Govern- 
ment thinks or talks of winding up the war 
for years to come. The idea of peace is not 
tolerated here short of the extermination of 
the white race in the South, and a division 
of the rebel estates among the negroes and 
Yankee speculators. The Crittenden or con- 
gressional platform of the war, as laid down 
in 1861, has become obsolete in this latitude, 
and the rights of the States to the control of 
their own affairs and to regulate their domes- 
tic institutions must now be entirely obliter- 
ated before the party in power will listen to 
any proposition looking to peace and reunion. 
" The Union as it was" must give way to the 
abolitionists, "Union as it ought to be," be- 
fore the terrible slaughter, the wicked devas- 
tation, and the mountainous expenditures of 
this " cruel war" can be arrested, if the peo- 
ple fail to overthrow the ruling powers at the 
approaching election. All discussion of even 



8 



a basis of settlement is cat off, and all talk of 
an honorable adjustment of the issues in- 
volved in the war is stifled hy the insolent 
and overbearing majority in Congress, whose 
political supremacy depends entirely upon a 
oontinuance of the war in all its gigantic pro- 
portions. It is for this reason that no olive- 
branch, other than the President's absurd and 
unlawful amnesty proclamation, has ever 
been held out to induce repentant rebels to 
lay down their arms and return to the pro- 
tection of the old Union, while the repulsive 
features of the confiscation act impose upon 
them the necessity — ay, the necessity, of 
continuing to fight to escape sectional humili- 
ation, personal degradation, and absolute 
pecuniary ruin ! 

Think you, Mr. Chairman, that eight mil- 
lion white 4men of the "genuine breed and 
blood" will ever, even though they be over- 
come by our nailitary power, consent to reunite 
with us in a common Government upon any 
other than terms of equality ? Think you', sir, 
that they can by any privation be compelled 
to embrace the condition which the amnesty 
proclamation imposes, of swearing to support 
the unconstitutional negro edicts of Mr. Lin- 
coln, or to yield support to State consti- 
tutions framed under the direction of the Fed- 
eral Executive, as a condition precedent to 
the enjoyment of their rights to representa- 
tion in Congress and their relief Irom the 
rule of an arbitrary military Government ? I 
much mistake the Southern people, Mr. 
Chairman, if they would not prefer the ex- 
termination our friends on the other side of 
the House talk of, to such conditions ; and I 
fancy if we are to wait for peace and reunion 
until the rebels are brought to such terms, 
millions more of troops will have to be raised 
and new printing presses will have to be sup- 
plied for the manufacture of bonds and "le- 
gal tender" to meet the expenditure. 

It seems to me, sir, that if the President 
had desired to render peace and reunion im- 
possible he could not have accomplished his 
purpose more completely than he has by the 
terms of his amnesty proclamation ; for no- 
body will for a moment suppose that the white 
men of the rebel States, after the determined 
resistance they have made, will ever consent 
to yield up their property and make oath to 
sustain such usurpations of their constitu- 
tional rights as the price of the free suffrage 
which belongs to every citizen. 

The President's assumption of power to 
prescribe conditions for the exercise of the 
elective franchise, by designating who shall 
be voters in any State, is a feature in his re- 
construction policy which can never be toler- 
ated by American freemen. North or South. 
Suffrage is a matter that pertains exclusively 
to the State governments, and no "military 
necessity" can warrant the "war power" in 
encroaching upon it in any degree. Neither 
Congress, the President, nor any other na- 
tional power is authorized to interfere in any 
manner with the free suffrage of the people ; 



and the President's amnesty proclamation in 
this particular is simply the arbitrary assump- 
tion of a prerogative as foreign to his powers 
as the Chief Executive of the nation as it is to 
his attributes as Commander-in-Chief of the 
Army. 

Mr. Chairman, I am further justified in 
assuming that the Republican party intend to 
prolfing the war until the wretchedness, pov- 
erty, and humiliation of every man, woman, 
and child in the South is fully consummated, 
or the white race exterminated, by the cir- 
cumstance that the President and his advis- 
ers have entirely lost sight of the indisputable 
fact that no union, however formed, can be 
of any value to the people, or amount to 
anything as a national governmental organiza- 
tion, which is not made acceptable to the 
great body of the white people who compose 
the population of the now disaffected States— 
so far, at least, as those States are concerned. 
It is perfectly safe to say that no one-tenth 
of the voting population of any State will be 
permitted by the other nine-tenths to control 
its politics, if the spirit which the southern 
people have manifested in this rebellion is 
any index of their true character. Indeed, 
they would shame their lineage if they should 
submit to any such humiliation. A majority 
of the people living in the "reconstructed 
States" proposed by the President must par- 
ticipate, upon equal terms, in organizing any 
new Government to be set up, or such Gov- 
ernment cannot be expected to stand a 
moment longer than its authority is enforced 
by military power. Even when the Federal 
authorities shall have completely overpow- 
ered the physical resistance of the rebels, a 
majority must then be found willing to ac- 
quiesce aud co-operate in any effective Gov- 
ernment which may be set over them, or a 
new rebellion for its overthrow will be the 
consequence. All pretended civil govern- 
ment in the southern States will be a mere 
farce if external military power hs required 
to sustain it ("as in Louisiana and Alabama, 
for instance) against the will of a majority 
of the people. 

This war, Mr. Chairman, has not been car- 
ried on with a proper appreciation on the 
part of the Administration of the fact that it 
is a CIVIL WAR, and the belligerents fellow- 
countrymen, who are again to form one peo- 
ple. The truism uttered by the President in 
his inaugural, "that after much fighting 
peace must come," for the reason that "we 
cannot fight always," has not been kept so 
prominently in view by the managers of this 
war as it should have been. We seem not to 
have sufficiently regarded the fact that in case 
the rebellion is conquered, the masses of the 
people whom we now regard as traitors, and 
their descendants, are to live with us and our 
children in all after time, under a common 
Government. For this reason, if no other, 
the war should have been carried on with a 
view to prevent the growth of the rankling 
hatred toward us, which the policy of the Ad- 



9 



ministration has engendered. The eonthern 
soldiers whom our armies encounter in battle 
are our countrymen, with whom we hope to 
re-establish fraternal relations in Government, 
trade, and social intercourse, so soon as they 
come to a realizing sense of their wickedness 
and folly in attempting to destroy the Union 
and set up another national Government 
within the territory of the United States. 
Instead ot" permitting this consideration to 
soften the asperities of the conflict, the Ad- 
ministration policy has rather augmented its 
vindictiveness and multiplied the atrocities 
which have characterizid its progress, as 
though the two sections of our country now 
at variance are to remain implacable and un- 
reconcilable enemies forever 1 Instead of a 
policy of warfare tntended to secure the re- 
spect of the misguided men who have as- 
Bailed the Government and win back their af- 
fections, through a renewed love for our glo- 
rious old Union, the Administration has de- 
liberately adopted one calculated to intensify 
their hate and render indelible a harrowing 
remembrance of the wrongs they claim to 
have snlfered at our hands. Instead of ex 
tending to them the olive branch and labor- 
ing to convince them that their best interests 
would be found in the Union, and that their 
happiness and prosperity as a people would 
be best promoted by laying down their £.rms 
and resuming their allegiance to the Federal 
Government, we have rather sought to irri 
tate and exasperate by destioying private 
property in the progress of our armies through 
their territory, by emancipation proclama- 
tions, by propagating negro equality, and by 
confiscating enactments, entirely inconsistent 
with the idea of future association and inter- 
course as fellow-citizens of the same country. 
To me it would seem as if nothing calculated 
to generate sectional hatred, arouse bad 
blood, provoke a spirit of revenge, and stim- 
ulate the worst passions of an excitable and 
sensitive population, and give vigor to the 
rebellion by uniting all the people of the 
South in hostility to the Government, had 
been omitted on the part of the Administra 
tion during the progress of this war. A dif- 
ferent policy might have worked out a differ- 
ent result ; but since we have striven to pro- 
voke their hatred and embitter their animos- 
ity, we will necessarily have to deal wiih im- 
placable foes, when after much fighting we 
reach that period of negotiation referred to 
by the President in his inaugural. 

Those who have guided the Government in 
its work of devastation and confiscation, who 
have directed its violation of the Constitution 
in stripping the southern people of their 
rights, and its violation of God's law of hu- 
manity, who urge upon it the barbarity of 
exterminating the white race in the insurgent 
States, and of desolating one-third of this con- 
tinent, are nothing else than disumonists. 
They are as much enemies of the Government 
and the country as the rankest secessionists 
of the South ; and the policy of warfare they 



advocate will do more to prevent the restora- 
tion of the Union than all the military power 
the Confederates can combine. In fact, Presi- 
dent Lincoln's proclamations have already 
done more to recruit the rebel armies and 
sustain the rebellion than anything the reb>)l8 
have themselves done ; and the negro legis- 
lation of Congress and its confiscation enact- 
ments can have no other effejt than to render 
an honorable peace and the restoration of the 
Union utterly impossible, until, through a 
revolution in the public sentiment of the loy- 
al States, the preeent occupant of the presi- 
dential chair can be constitutionally unseated, 
and a majority in Congress secured who will 
not hesitate to set aside the paper proclama- 
tions of the President, and expunge from the 
statute book the whole series of unconstitu- 
tional laws, which have leei feeding the fires 
of the rebellion and fanning the flames of se- 
cession, making reconciliation, peace, and 
union still more difficult when the fighting 
shall be finished by exhaustion and we pro- 
ceed to the inevitable negotiation spoken of 
by the President in his inaugural. There is 
no use, Mr. Chairman, in attempting to es* 
cape the fact that the great body of the peo- 
ple in the rebel States must be reconciled to 
the condition of living under the Federal Gov- 
ernment with us. This reconciliation would 
not have been difiioult if the war had been pros- 
ecuted in strict accordance with the pledges 
of the Piesideut at its commencement, and 
upon the theory of the Crittenden resolution. 
The masses of the people whom we now just- 
ly regard as rebels were duped into rebellion 
and treason by the misrepresentations of their 
leaders. They really have no ambition and 
no interests hostile to the Federal Union, and 
if their constitutional rights can be guarantied 
to them, it will not, even now, I apprehend, 
be difficalt for them to become our friends, 
and to learn once more to respect the old na- 
tional flag, and to rejoice as of old in the pros- 
perity and glory of our common country. 

Either through the severe discipline of the 
war, the magnanimity of the Government, or 
a rational conviction of duty on their part, 
the rebels now in arms against the Union 
must be converted into true and loyal citi- 
zens of the United States. When that shall 
have been accomplished, and not till then, 
peace will spread her wings over our now dis- 
tracted country, and our Union will start 
anew to work out for the benefit of universal 
humanity the great problems presented by a 
free Government in which the people hold 
the sovereign power. 

At the outset of this rebellion, Mr. Chair- 
man, it is conceded that the President was 
correct when he stated his belief that in no 
State save South Carolina were a majority of 
the people ia favor of the secession move- 
ment. There can be no question of the fact 
that the South was carried out of the Union 
against the wishes of a majority of its people. 
Now, after three years of bloody and devasta- 
ting war, the end of which no man can fore- 



10 



see, the people of the seceded States are nn- 
questionably very near a unit in hostility to 
the Government. What has produced this 
change in the popular sentiment of the South ? 
Nothing bnt the proclamations of PresidHnt 
Lincoln and the threats of the Government to 
Bweep away all the constitutional rights of 
the southern people, and to confiscate their 
property. Oiiginally, secession was set on 
foot by a few political demagogues, ambitious 
for power, with whom a majority of the peo- 
ple in whose behalf they professed to act did 
not sympathize. But the unconstitutional 
policy of the Administration with regard to 
the negro, who should havs been studiously 
kept out of the fight, and the threats of con- 
fiscation, soon changed the current of popu- 
lar feeling in the South, so that the people 
who at first abhorred secession and loved the 
Union, when they discovered that the war 
was to be carried on for the enfranchisement 
of the negro and the sequestration of their 
property, and not for the Union, were driven 
for self protection into the ranks of the re- 
bellion en masse. Thus it was that the South 
became united in support of the schemes of 
their designing politicians, and secession was 
able to present a front so formidable that with 
aJ.l our power and resources we have not yet 
been able to penetrate it. 

In the outset the President himself pro- 
fessed the Democratic doctrine of non inter- 
vention with the negro, but the fanatics 
finally succeeded in getting him off the track ; 
and when he consented to make the war 
a crusade for the liberation of enslaved 
negroes he became answerable for all the 
calamities that have since fallen upon our 
unhappy country. Had he adhered to his 
first position, had he followed the spirit of the 
Crittenden resolution, we should have held 
the South divided, while the North would 
have been resolutely united in any movement 
to crush the revolt. In such a case who can 
doubt that the rebellion, which still rears its 
head in proud defiance and still threatens to 
ingulf all that remains of our free Govern- 
meBt, would have been nipped in the bud ? 
But now, after a desperate struggle of three 
years, which has no parallel in history, in- 
volving an unexampled sacrifice of life and 
treasure — after depleting our country in its 
youth and manhood and pecuniary resources 
to a frightful extent — after suffering deep 
national humiliation and imposing upon future 
generations a load of debt, the interest of 
which will swallow up an immense proportion 
of the annual products of the enterprise, in- 
dustry, and capital of the nation, we find our- 
selves apparently further from a termination 
of the struggle than when it first commenced 
— always supposing that the war is to be con- 
tinued to consummate the emancipation and 
reconstruction policy of the President and his 
abolition advisers, as proclaimed frbm the 
other side of this Hall. Does history preseut 
any record of so sad a failure on tlie part of 
any established Government to quell a rebel- 



lion within its own borders ? If we could 
even now turn the attention of the Adminis- 
tration from its efforts to carry the presiden- 
tial election, and its pestilent idea of negro 
philantrhopy, to the great business of abolish- 
ing the rebel armies and destroying the 
military power of the secessionists, we might 
possibly see the war closed and the Union 
saved before the end of the present year. 
But we shall see no such thing. The con- 
tinuance of the war is a part of the Rt^publican 
programme of the election, and a restoration 
of tke Union would be a fatal blow to the 
hopes of the horde of public plunderers whose 
vocation will cease when Mr. Lincoln retires 
from the presidential mansion. 

Just here, Mr. Chairman, permit me to ask 
what has the freedom or slavery of the black 
race, their comfort or misery, their rights 
or wrongs, their elevation or depression, to 
do with a war for the restoration of the 
Union under the Constitution, the purposes 
of which were so clearly defined in the Crit- 
tenden resolutions of 1S61? What we want, 
Mr. Chairman, is to establish the supremacy 
of the Federal laws in all the States, of the 
Union. When that is done, what will there 
be to fight for ? Shall we then continue the 
war to emancipate the negroes constitution- 
ally held to service? Gentlemen upon the 
other side say yes ! Why not as well war 
with Spain, Brazil, Turkey, and other slave 
nations to enforce the liberation of the black 
slaves in their dominions ? Why not as well 
commence a war with the remaining slave- 
holders in the loyal States, in Kuntucky, 
Maryland and Delaware, where the President 
did not presume to molest their "property 
in man" by his proclamation ? As the fate 
of the negro, under any circumstances, must 
depend upon the local laws of the State in 
which he dwells, why not leave him to take 
care of himself while we look alter the in- 
terests of the white race and endeavor to 
to stay the tide of blood and carnage which 
has already spread so much desolation and 
mourning throtighout the land ? 

Considering our immense preponde-rance of 
population, our superior facilities for bringing 
large armies into the HAd, our advantages of 
a powerful and effective naval force, our al- 
most unlimited means to arm, feed, clothe, 
and pay our troops, while in all these respects 
the rebels have been cramped aud embarrass- 
ed, having comparatively no manufactories of 
their own, with their seaports so closely block- 
aded as to almost exclude thom from obtain- 
ing arms and other supplies from abroad, have 
we not made an exceeding poor show to the 
world of our ability to conquer this rebellioo 
by force of arms ? With all these ad vantages 
— with the expenditure of more than twice if 
not four times the amount of money disbursed 
for the support of the rebellion, and the sac- 
rifice of tens of thousands more lives in battle 
and by disease than h ive been U»i l)y the re- 
bel armies — what a :tual resulis have been 
achieved in the way of restoring the Union t 



11 



Aside from the anticipated ezhanstion of the 
rebel resoarces, what assurances can we give 
the people to- day that this war will not be 
continued for years and years to come, and 
that Government will not require draft aftpr 
draft of men to continue this harvest of death? 
Dj our Republican friends fail to remember 
that a defensive war was never yet stopped 
by financial destitution on the part of those 
who were defending their homes and fighting 
for what they conceived to be their rights ? 
History makes no such record. Whatever 
their present will or purpose, Mr. Chairman, 
the sad experience of the last three years 
proves to my mind that the men now in pewer 
are incapable of putting down this rebellion 
and restoring the Union upon any programme 
they may adopt. And, Mr. Chairman, in 
view of the unpleasant facts, and cheerless 
circumstances to which I have referred, I am 
impelled to the conclusion that the vast army 
of public plunderers, contractors, placemen, 
and " venal patriots," who have been " run- 
ning" this Administration from its commence- 
ment, have resolved that the war shall not 
end while they can retain the power to keep 
it in operation. 

Our constituents, Mr. Chairman, were 
lately consoling themselves with the thought 
that they had escaped a draft to fill up the 
new army of half a million men then being 
organized for three years' service. Not long, 
however, were they permitted to " lay the 
flattering unction to their souls" before 
another draft was ordered, which is still pend- 
ing, for two hundred thousand more ; and 
when that shall be supplied, if the present 
Administration is continued for another term, 
other armies of like or greater magnitude will 
be demanded over and over again before ne- 
gro freedom and equality becomes the "fixed 
fact" so prematurely recognized by my col- 
league, [Mr. Brooks.] 

The cupidity of the leaders of the Republi- 
can party has overslaughed their patriotism, 
and they have evidently become more anxious 
how to protract the war without exciting the 
suspicions of the people as to the mercenary 
and personally ambitious motives which gov- 
ern them, than to restore peace, tranquility, 
and union to our suffering country. 

The gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Garfield] 
proclaims that this is an abolition Congress ; 
that ours is an abolition array ; that the coun- 
try is abolition in sentiment, and that no con- 
ditions of peace are to be entertained which 
do not concede the complete abolition of ne- 
gro slavery, in every State, forever ! Other 
gentlemen upon that side have boldly ad- 
vcnced the same theory. If such a result 
wtre possible without violating the Constitu- 
ticn and without the sacrifice of the white 
Kce, without beggaring whatever of loyal 
people there may be in the South, the inno- 
cent dupes of the arch-traitors who set the 
rebellion in motion, whom we hope to see 
once more in the fraternal embraces of the 
Union, and who will then be expected to help 



pay the debt which has been incurred ia 
compelling them to submit to the laws, I 
would rejoice in its consummation, and so 
would, I doubt not, the entire Democracy of 
the North. Sir, I am no advocate or defen- 
der of slavery, nor was I ever. Nor was the 
Democratic party ever a pro-slavery party, 
as gentlemen on the other side delight to 
aver. Simple non-intervention has been the 
uniform policy of the Democracy upon the 
negro question, and that policy they would 
ha?e applied to the conduct of this war ; and 
that policy they would adhere to in adjust- 
ing the terms of a return of the seceded States 
to their allegiance. We would let the peo- 
ple of those States, as the Constitution pro- 
vides, fix the status of the negro in their sev- 
eral localities. - 

If slavery is now abolished, as my colleague 
from the city of New York says it is, whether 
that result has been accomplished as an inci- 
dent of our military operations or by virtue 
of the President's proclamations of emancipa- 
tion and amnesty, it is not the mission of the 
Democratic party to re-establish it, as it was 
not our right to destroy or molest it when the 
powers of the Government rested in our hands. 
As a party, we owe nothing to slavery or 
slaveholders ; but we do owe something to 
the Constitution. We are as much bound to 
regard the provision in respect to "persons 
held to service' ' as any other ; and so far as 
that instrument protects slavery, the north.- 
ern Democracy has assented to its existence 
in such States as have been pleased to toler- 
ate it as a system of labor. We had no right 
to move for its abolition, as the party now in 
power have no right to make its extinction a 
condition precedent to a restoration of peace, 
union, and friendly intercourse with the re- 
bellious States. The pro-slavery stigma 
which the abolitionists have sought to fasten 
upon the Democratic party was always a ca- 
lumny, and as such has beeu repelled in all 
the controversies that have arisen in regard 
to negro slavery since the annexation of 
Texas, when the negro question which now 
convulses the nation first entered prominently 
into the party politics of the rountry. 

The right of States to control their domes- 
tic afi'airs and to have? slavery or leave it 
alone — to abolish or continue it — is a consti- 
tutional prerogative which the Democracy 
never questioned ; and when that right has 
been assailed by fanatics and negro worship- 
ers, it has been the province of the Demo- 
cratic party, as the champion and special 
guardian of the Constitution, to defend that 
provision as a portion of the fundamental law 
of the land. Our efforts have ever been to 
keep the negro question out of the arena of 
politics and out of the halls of Congress. If 
the people of any State desired slavery, we 
were willing they should have it. If any de- 
sired to abolish or prohibit it, we said, 
"Amen I" But our inability to exclude the 
irritating controversy which the agitation of 
the slavery question engendered, from the is- 



12 



snes in party politics, and the determination 
of our opponents to make the negro and his 
wrongs, real or fancied, a prominent feature 
in all tbeir political operations, bas brouaht 
upon th« country, as we always predicted it 
would, disunion and war, followed by dire ca- 
lamities too numerous and too mournful to 
recapitulate upon this occasion. From a mul- 
tiplication of these calamities and a long con- 
tinuance of this cruel, bloody, and exhaust- 
ing war, I can see no deliv^erance short of 
ejecting from power, in a constitutional way, 
the radical abolitionists who are incited V)y 
interest as well as policy to prosecute this 
fraternal strife to secure political results. 

The Democratic theory of this rebellion 
was well stated the other day by my col 
leagup, [Mr. Kernan,] whose position was 
that the States, as such, are not in rebellion, 
but individuals and combinations of Individ 
nals have set up a resistance to the national 
Grovernmeot, and the Government is striving 
to subdue them. The States, as States, are 
not to be punished or disfranchised for the 
acts of these individual rebels, even though 
they constitute a majority of the people in 
the State and have usurped the power of the 
State. The business of the general Govern- 
ment is to overthrow the usurpers and rescue 
the State government from their hands ; and 
when it shall have overcome the insurrection, 
it can punish the individual traitors accord- 
ing to their crimes and in accordance with 
law. What we want is power to enforce the 
law against individuals. We have nothing 
to do with States, or with their constitutions 
or laws, otherwise than to know that they 
have a republican form of government and 
that their laws are in accordance with the 
Constitution of the United States. The rebel 
States are still a part of the nation. They 
have never be^n out of the Union. Their or- 
dinances of secession are null and void. They 
had no power to take themselves out of the 
Union, and the rebels are therefore still citi- 
zens of the United States, amenable to Fed- 
eral law. 

Sir, I repudiate the theory of the chairman 
of the Committee of Ways and Means that 
they are a foreign people, alien enemies, and 
that upon their return to the Union the south- 
ern States are to be treated as conquered pro- 
vinces. I adhere to the war platform. of Con- 
gress in 18G1, and contend that so soon as the 
Government finds itself able to enforce the 
Federal laws within and throughout the ter- 
ritory of any State in rebellion, by civil pro- 
cess, that moment military operations against 
the people of that State should cease, and re- 
course should at onoe be had to civil authority 
for the punishment of crimes and the enforce- 
ment of the laws. 

In this view, I cannot resist the conclusion 
that if this nation is ever saved from the ruin 
which now threatens it, the States must first 
come again together under " the Constitution 
aflitis," however " sick" it may make the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania, before a per- 



manent adjastm^nt of the pending difficulties 
can be made. When all the States are onca 
again in fraternal communion, chastened by 
the calamities of the war, and confronting the 
huge national debt which has Ven heaped up 
for future generations to pay, any defects that 
may have been discovered in the fundamental 
law under which we live and under which we 
must thereafter live in peacefal relations, and 
in the amendment of which all have a right 
to participate, may then be remedied in the 
manner therein prescribed so as to meet the 
present views of a majority of the States. If 
ueed be that African slavery shall ba prohib- 
ited, let the Constitution be so am^^nded, le- 
gally, as to prohibit it in all the States. In 
my view, this is the only proper and tfTactive 
way to get rid of slavery legitimately and 
peacefully. It would, no doubt, accomplish 
the emancipation our friends on the other side 
profess to be contending for, without the fur- 
ther shedding of blood or destruction of pro- 
perty. But as legal emancipation in that way 
would be of no benefit to them in this election 
it is idle to hope that they will embrace it. 

Mr. Chairman, I am one of thosH who 
believe that if the Administration had ad- 
hered to the spirit of the President's inaug- 
ural, and confiuel itself to the ehjects of the 
war as set forth in the Crittenden resolution, 
the rebellion would now have been at an end, 
with the old Union restored and the vacant 
seats in this House and the Senate filled with 
loyal representatives from all the States now 
in antagonism with the Government. I also 
believe, that hid the amnesty proclamation 
which accompanies the President's message 
now under consideration, contained no other 
requirement than unconditional submission 
to the laws an<l the Constitution of the United 
States, it would have been more powerful for 
the extinction of the rebellion and the res- 
toration of the Union than the half million 
men who are now being gathered f-^r the 
further prosecution of this abolition war, and 
the two hundred thousand more who are te 
be drafted in April. The effect ef such an 
offer to the rebels would have been to scatter 
their armies, the rank and file of which are 
probably by this time reaJy to abandon the 
secession enterprise upon any honorable pre- 
text, to avoid further sacrifices in a fruitless 
effort to acquire the independence of their 
so called confederacy, provided they could 
return to their allegiance as they only hon- 
orably can, with their couistitutional rights 
unimpaired. I am sustained in this view by 
an intelligent correspondent of the New York 
Herald, who has just returned from a year's 
captivity in the South, whose interesting 
narrative was published this week in that 
journal. In speaking of the feeling prevalent 
among the most intelligent citizens of the 
South with whom he conversed, he says : 

"Some of thorn have also told me that a full and 
complete amnesty to all engaged in the rebellion, 
and a repeal of the oontiJcation act, might have a 
tendency to ond the war immediately. 'If you 



13 



would only do that,' said a rebel officer who held a 
high oommand, 'I believe there would scarcely be 
a southern soldier under arms in thirty days. But 
the last amnesty proclamation of Mr. Lincoln de- 
feats the object sought to be attained; for it ex- 
cludes from clemency the very men who have tho 
power to disperse the armies.' 'If a universal am- 
nesty were proclaimed,' he repeated, 'I believe 
there would scarcely be a southern soldier under 
arms in thirty days.' " 

There is a world of truth and sound logic in 
this brief extract from the returned prisoner's 
narrative. 

The untenable position of the President, 
that the rebels can only be restored to citiz-ju- 
ehip, and allowed the right of suffrage, by 
swearing to support an abolition proclamation 
which he had no authority to issue, but in- 
creases the difficulties that prevent a recon- 
ciliation of the rebels to an abandonment of 
their insane struggle for independence. Al- 
though it is probable that two years ago the 
rebel leaders might have scouted the idea of a 
"compromise" with the Government, and 
would not have listened to any terras of peace 
short of the recognition of their independence, 
it by no means follows that they would not 
now "take the back track" and permit their 
States to resume their places in the Uuion, if 
such terms could be obtained as would leave 
them in the same position, as to their rights 
snder the Constitution, which they occupied 
at the time they so wickedly, foolishly, and 
causelessly resorted to arms. They possibly 
now perceive the error of their movement, 
and would, perhaps, return at once if a way 
were opened for them to conciliation without 
degradation. They are now holding oat 
against a Government which threatens their 
extermination ; which exacts of them a sacri- 
fice of their property ; which imposes upon 
them degrading conditions, and proposes to 
overturn their entire social system, demand- 
ing of them an oath to relinquish their pro- 
perty, their constitutional rights, and to yield 
support to State governments organized by 
one-tenth of their population ! Cao we ex- 
pect they will submit to such repulsive con- 
ditions ? Ought we to expect it ? Their 
cmly alternative is to fight on until more ac- 
ceptable terms are offered ; and that, I appre- 
hend, is more satisfactory to the blood- thirsty 
politicians who are " running" this Admin- 
ifitration than would be their most abj-^ct 
submission, for it insures a continuance ot the 
war, and supplies them with pecuniary means 
and political capital for the important election 
now before u?. 

This glorious Union, so long the pride and 
^lory of the friends of civil and religious lib 
«rty throughout the world, founded in com- 
promise, concession, and conciliation, main- 
tained in like manner for three quarters of a 
century, and which can only be perp>ituated 
upon the same just principles, is now sought 
to be Bustainei, not by the willing support 
and free consent of a majority of the people, 
but by an unyielding proscription of one sec- 



tion, by despotic edicts, and by a total disre- 
gard of the rights, interests, and, I will say, 
prejudices, which our fathers thought it ex- 
pedient to recognize, cousult, reijard, and 
conciliate, when constructing the Constitution 
which secured to us the best Government the 
world ever saw. To be entitled to the pro- 
tection of that Constitution, the wo»-k alike of 
the North and the South, and to sbarrt iu the 
blessings which it showers upon all who re- 
pose beneath the shadow of our flag, the peo- 
ple of OHO section of our territory, loyal mea 
as well as rebels, are required by the Admin- 
istration not only to yield up their property, 
but to swear that they will support the unau- 
thorized, oppressive, and unconstitutional 
edicts ef the President, which they abhor. 
The fiat of abolition has, however, gone forth, 
and the people are notified by the organs of 
the Administration upon this floor that so 
long as a negro remains in bondage the 
war must progress, and the red harvest of 
death be continued. Civil liberty is now 
dethroned. State constitutioLS and State 
laws are overridden, while the Federal Con- 
stitution is nullified and the laws of Congress 
set aside under the plea of "military necessi- 
ty" whenever they are found to stand in the 
way of the plans and policy of the Adminis- 
tration. No man's rights are safe from en- 
croachment, and personal liberty, in loyal aS 
well as rebel States, depends upon the will 
of the despots who have set aside the Consti- 
tution, ignored the laws, and usurped arbi- 
trary power. There is no habeas corpus, and 
there is no citizen in any State who is not 
liable to arrest at any hour of the day or night 
without legal process, without being charged 
with any offense or crime, without being ap- 
prised of the cause of his arrest or being al- 
lowed to inform his friends of the fact of his 
being in custody. He is audaciously kidnap- 
ped and incarcerated in some remote fortifi- 
cation or prison. He suddenly disappears 
from among his friends, is mysteriously ab- 
sent from his business, nobody knowing what 
has become of him. His family are in dis- 
tress, and days pass before it is ascertained 
that he has been stealthily spirited away by 
the minions of power and imprisoned in Fort 
La Fayette, the Old Capitol, or some other 
bastile where the victims of the reigning des- 
potism are kept in close confinemr-nt uuiil it 
pleases the powers that be to discharge them, 
with or without trial as they may pit- ase. — 
Cases of this kind, Mr. Chairman, are too 
numerous and too well known to particular- 
ize, and very many more than have been 
made public have transpired. 

Sir, the remedy for these evils and the only 
escape from the despotism that now holds 
sway is first to bn sought at the ballot box in 
the great political contest now before the 
country. The peaceful strife at the polls in 
November will be pregnant with more impor- 
tant results to this country and the cuiie of 
civil liberty throughout the world than all 
the bloody battles that have been or may be 



14 



fought in onr efforts to subjugate the South 
and give freedom to the negro race. If the 



try to suffer four jears more of the policy 
that now prevails, I, for one, shall cease to 
hope for a^nything «hort of the utter rum of 
the American Republic. 



tJISTRIBUTE THE DOCUMENTS: 

B@„Vv^ILL BE READY ON THURSDAY, MARCH 10, lSG4,-^a 
THE ONLY CORRECTED CHEAP EDITION. 

THE EEPORT OF 

MAJOR GEi^ERAIi GEORGE B. McCEELtiAM 

CORRECTED AND REVISED, 

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Its interest added to by a Biographical Sketch of his Life. 



« o< 



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LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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pH 8.5 

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